


Wherein Sulu does not have wings

by kayliemalinza



Series: Rambleverse [39]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Kayliemalinza's Rambleverse, Pike's Reclaimed Captaincy (Rambleverse Timeline), Sulu POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-27
Updated: 2010-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-20 14:48:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayliemalinza/pseuds/kayliemalinza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know when the best time to have translation issues is? When aliens want to throw you off a cliff, of course.</p><p>Teaser: "I do not fly with my body alone," he says. "I use a... mechanical device." Something sharp prods into his back, just beneath the left shoulderblade, and Sulu knows immediately that did not translate at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wherein Sulu does not have wings

"Uh," says Sulu. "I am honored by your, uh—" His pause is not because of the steep drop at his feet (in fact, the view is quite beautiful: pale sandstone teeth melting into the grey haze of fields far below, wisps of tender purple here and there from the iodine swamps, dotted lines of ruminant herds;) but because when Uhura briefed them this morning, she mentioned several words that the universal translator cannot render in this language. Sulu does not remember what those words are, but he knows that they are fairly common. Perhaps one of them is 'uh;' that's about the shape of his luck today.

The silence has gone on too long, so the alien standing to the side booms out, "You hesitate, O Winged One?" Eir voice curdles as the translator does its work between Sulu's ears and his brain.

"Well, sir," Sulu says, hoping the term of address will translate without complication because his body language is a lost cause. Are those nodules even heads? Do they understand what it means to bow in supplication? He can't even remember if this species is sexually dimorphic. "Ma'am, that's just the thing," Sulu continues, just to cover his bases. "I don't have wings, as such." He mentally kicks himself for adding unnecessary words: each morpheme is an opportunity for disaster.

An angry chittering (at least, Sulu presumes it is angry; it is certainly a chittering) travels through the crowd. The alien who spoke before—the one with the most colorful beads about eir neck (waist?)—tamps eir scepter against the ground. "You spoke of soaring through the air as gracefully as the chicken!"

Sulu should not be irritated at that. Though he does not fully comprehend the difficulty of translating between languages with virtually no common referents (his closest analogous experience is a pair of false cognates that earned him a B- on a Spanish final, and that is a poor example; he should have studied harder,) he does remember Uhura working herself to exhaustion. After three days of that she scraped together some meager off-duty minutes to spend in Amazonia, only to fall into such deep sleep that the cords of the hammock cut into her cheek. It would be unfair of Sulu to blame her for this.

"I do not fly with my body alone," he says. "I use a... mechanical device." Something sharp prods into his back, just beneath the left shoulder-blade, and Sulu knows immediately that did not translate at all. These people were banished to the cliff-lands centuries ago, paying for each morsel of food with too much blood while the other sentient species of this planet unfurled their limbs to the stars. "I use a vessel," he tries again, "as you use a boat to sail upon the sea." No, dammit, these people don't have seas; they chase vermin into swamps and build their camps around the meager bubbling of acidic wells. Sulu can feel the fabric of his outer shirt tear as the point digs in more deeply. "I'm molting," he blurts out.

A gasp ripples through the crowd, which is something of a surprise. Sulu wasn't sure they had lungs.

"Molting?" says the leader. Sulu cannot trust the inflection of the translator but the alien does sound more reasonable than before.

"Yes, molting," says Sulu. "My feathers have fallen out, and I am unable to fly. If you shove me off this cliff, I will die." It would have been best, he reflects, to have pointed that out to begin with. Perhaps conditioning is to blame; the warmish updraft here would be bliss if he had his hang-glider (it is on the ship, unfortunately, disassembled and tucked beneath his bed in lieu of extra clothes.)

"We apologize!" the alien cries, waving eir stick about.

The sharp point disappears from Sulu's back and he allows himself to relax his posture, only briefly.

The alien waves the stick again, and the others gathered wave their arm-type limbs. "Allow us to comfort you in your period of crankiness!" ey says.

Sulu thinks about his sister's cockatiel and decides that the translator got it spot-on that time.

 

An hour later, Kirk bursts into the hut where Sulu is being held. "Lieutenant, are you unharmed?" he says, jumbling the words together in one breath.

Sulu swallows his mouthful of sweet, fermented seeds. "I think I have a bruise on my back," he says.

Kirk blinks at him, then turns in a quarter-circle to examine the rest of the hut with narrowed eyes. Sulu is used to seeing Kirk like this, when they are sparring or when Kirk is watching his people pick through difficult terrain. Kirk cautiously steps closer to the pallet where Sulu is resting, ready for something with fangs to jump out from the shadows. "Sorry it took so long to find you," he says. "There's a natural reactor in the rock base of these cliffs; it screwed up all the readings on our equipment."

"It's alright," Sulu says. He turns to the alien sitting on the edge of the pallet and dips his head so ey can get in one last preening-skritch behind his ear. "Thank you for your hospitality," he says. He offers em the string of beads wound about his wrist, but the alien refuses.

"No, that is yours," ey says. "May it bring you joy and oral health."

Sulu smiles though it is useless (he cannot hope to mimic their displays of emotion) and clasps the string of beads to his chest. It will make a lovely windchime, if he can figure out how to hang it up in his quarters. Perhaps he'll use the frame of his hang-glider.

Jim steps forward and curls his hand around Sulu's bicep, sooner and more tightly than Sulu would have if their positions were reversed. Sulu barely manages to say "Thank you" once again before Kirk is pulling him out of the hut and through the small camp.

They stop, finally, in a small clearing that smells like the energizer beam. Engineering swears that the transporter doesn't smell like anything but Sulu can pick it out from meters away.

"Two to beam up," Kirk says into his communicator.

"Glad to hear it!" comes a tinny voice from beyond the atmosphere. "Just a second, Commander."

Kirk looks at Sulu while they wait, his brows drawn together and his mouth flattened in disapproval. "This isn't as exciting as the last time I rescued you," he says.

Sulu smiles and answers, "No complaints here."


End file.
